cron-apt for Debian

Edit /etc/cron-apt/config
and add rules to
/etc/cron-apt/action.d

You can also add extra configuration for each action (same syntax as /etc/cron-apt/config) by naming the file /etc/cron-apt/config.d/<actionname>. The configuration from one action is kept to the next action as well.

The configuration in /etc/cron-apt/config (and config.d/<actionname> consist of a couple of variables that you can set. They are documented in the config file itself. The configuration files will always allow any POSIX /bin/sh compatible syntax so you can use them for hooks and simlar things as well as simply setting variables.

If you want this tool to be run even if you do not have it up at 04 in the morning you can create a symbolic link from /etc/cron.daily/cron-apt to /usr/sbin/cron-apt. It will then be run every day (even if the computer is not on at that time). Similar things can be done for each week, and so on. You have to have anacron installed for this to work. If not, daily scripts run 6 AM by crond.

ln -s /usr/sbin/cron-apt /etc/cron.daily/cron-apt

Observe that it is not always a good thing to update package information and download files when the computer is started. This is especially true if you do not have a good Internet connection.

You also need to disable the normal cron.d/cron-apt file if you do not want it to be run twice.

Alternate sources.list file

If you just want to update security related things you can always use an alternate sources.list files by giving this extra information to the OPTIONS variable in the configuration file.

OPTIONS="-q -o Dir::Etc::SourceList=/etc/apt/security.sources.list"

Development and documentation

If you want more information about this software you can visit the homepage at http://www.opal.dhs.org/programs/cron-apt/. You can find documentation, development information and other things there.

License terms

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program as the file COPYING; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA